4.2.4. Written Statement of Appointment 

Every person appointed to a position covered by these sections BOT 4.2.1 - 4.2.30, shall receive a statement in writing, from the Dean or other appropriate Appointing Officer, of the terms and conditions of the appointment before the appointment becomes effective. All appointments are subject to the provisions of these policies and Board of Trustees approval.

4.2.4.1 Joint Appointment Because of the importance of teaching, scholarship and service at the University, joint appointments may be desirable in certain circumstances. A joint appointment is a formal arrangement between two units that specifies the terms under which a member of one unit also provides service to the other unit. For purposes of a joint appointment, "unit" can mean College, department, school, program or University Libraries. The "primary unit" is where the faculty member's tenure status resides and the "secondary unit" negotiates for some portion of the faculty member's service.

1. Joint appointments shall be made when a faculty member serves two units for an academic year or longer. Providing academic service to a unit for one course (or its equivalent) per academic year for one or more years shall not be considered a joint appointment for purposes of this policy.

2. The conditions of an individual joint appointment must be detailed at the time of initial joint appointment in a written Memorandum of Understanding between the primary and secondary units and the faculty member. The Memorandum of Understanding shall include the following:

a. expectations for teaching, scholarship and service in each unit to which the faculty member is jointly appointed;

b. the proportion of the faculty member’s FTE that will be assigned to each unit. Specifically, three considerations need to be addressed: (i) the weighting of professional performance factors (teaching, scholarship, and service) that will apply to the individual on joint appointment; (ii) clear assignment of work effort in both units, (for example, number of courses taught, obligations for advising students, committee work, scholarship/creative expression, expectation for attending unit faculty meetings, etc.); (iii) how mentoring and other aspects of faculty development will be handled for new faculty;

c. the process for annual evaluation of the faculty member’s professional work. The secondary unit head/director will prepare summary comments and assign a rating (less than satisfactory, satisfactory, exemplary) for each of the categories of teaching, scholarship, and service; these comments will be forwarded to the primary unit and the faculty member by a date chosen by the Provost’s Office. The primary unit will use the secondary unit’s performance summary when conducting the evaluation of performance in its usual manner. The primary unit head will write the annual evaluation of performance and will attach a copy of the input from the secondary unit;

d. a requirement that the chairs of constituent units will confer at least annually to coordinate teaching and service responsibilities of jointly-appointed faculty, to insure that the overall load of teaching and service obligations does not exceed that of comparable faculty with appointments wholly in one unit;

e. address requests for various types of leave. Normally such decisions rest with the Dean of the faculty member's primary unit; however, chairs and deans of all units involved with the appointment will provide assessments of the requested leave before the dean makes a decision;

f. address voting rights on non-personnel matters in the secondary unit (for example, voting on curricular decisions, allocations of department/program resources, etc.);

g. address the joint appointee's representational rights in the faculty governance system; and,

h. the amount of compensation (if any) that will be paid to the primary unit.

3. The units must agree on the proportion of the joint appointee's time that will be spent in each unit and include this information in the Memorandum of Understanding.

4. The Memorandum of Understanding must be approved and signed by the chairs of the involved units, the faculty member, the Dean(s), and the Provost/Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs before a joint appointment takes effect.

5. The primary unit is responsible for reappointment, tenure, and promotion recommendations. These personnel actions will be governed by the written procedures of the primary unit; however, in the annual evaluation(s), the secondary unit will also provide summary comments about the performance of the joint appointee that relates to any of these decisions. A joint appointee is eligible to be considered for sabbatical grants and research funding in the same manner as faculty members not jointly appointed. The primary unit is responsible for initiating and carrying through the procedures leading to these decisions. The secondary unit will also provide summary comments about the performance of the joint appointee that relates to any of these decisions.

6. With regard to personnel matters, joint appointees will have full voting rights in their primary unit, regardless of the percentage of service performed in that unit. Normally, joint appointees will have the same rank in all units to which they are assigned.

7. Joint appointees will submit the same Faculty Workload Report (FWR) and annual Faculty Workload Plan (FWP) to the chairs of the primary unit and the secondary unit. Both unit heads should sign the FWR and the FWP. If recruiting for a joint appointment, the primary and secondary units will be represented on the search committee.

8. The joint appointment will be reviewed periodically and is subject to renewal or termination at will by either the primary unit or secondary unit effective no earlier than the end of the semester. If the joint appointment is terminated or not renewed, the faculty appointment will revert to the primary unit. A faculty member whose joint appointment was either terminated or not renewed shall be able to use the complaint procedure (Section 4.2.18) by filing a complaint with the Dean of the primary unit. For tenure-track faculty, the appointment may not extend beyond the current contract length with the primary unit nor, unless an exception is approved by the Provost/Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, will be more than 50% of the joint appointment be in the secondary unit.